


Just Be Real (Is All I'm Askin')

by whatstheproblembaby



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken, Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Crossover, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-23 06:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18148196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatstheproblembaby/pseuds/whatstheproblembaby
Summary: Myriad left Winn with dreams of people he's never met and places he's never been - dreams so realistic they might actually be memories. Are past lives real? Will he ever be able to find the people from his dreams?





	Just Be Real (Is All I'm Askin')

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around the end of s1/beginning of s2 of Supergirl, with a couple of tweaks to make the crossover work. I'm envisioning the Newsies Live cast when making physical descriptions, but I also stole the "Cowboy" reference from 92sies because I Do What I Want.

_“What’s Santa Fe got that New York ain’t?”_

“Winn. Winn! WINN.”

“Wha- where- Oh God,” Winn said, bolting upright from his fitful sleep. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t use your murder voice unless we were at at _least_ a DEFCON 2 situation.”

“You weren’t waking up,” Alex said with a shrug. “I did let Kara try first, but it was just wasn’t working out.”

“If I shook you any harder, you were going to go through a wall,” Kara confirmed. The sincerely apologetic look on her face helped soothe some of Winn’s irritation. “Couldn’t sleep last night?”

“No.” Winn scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know those recurring dreams that people have been reporting recently?”

“The ones where they’re in a relationship with Supergirl?” Kara asked, her face screwed up in distaste. “Please tell me you’re not-”

“Not those ones!” Winn interrupted. “The ones where people think they’re reliving past lives.”

“You started having one of those dreams? What were they like?” Alex settled an intense look on Winn.

“It was...incredibly real,” Winn said. “I mean, I’ve had realistic dreams before, but this literally felt like a memory. It couldn’t have been, though - I was in Manhattan in the dream, and I’ve never been to New York.”

“Could you change the dream in any way once it started?”

“No, that’s what made it feel so much like a memory. I was cold in the dream, so I tried imagining my shirt was a sweater, but nothing changed,” Winn said. “Usually I can manage something minor like that in a regular dream.”

“Was there anyone else in the dream? Did you recognize them?” Kara jumped in, shooting Alex a glance that was almost smug. Winn wasn’t sure what _that_ was about, but he answered regardless.

“There were people, but no, no one I knew,” he said. He closed his eyes, trying to picture them better. “Well, one of them - the one talking to me - looked kind of familiar, but only vaguely. He wasn’t anyone I’m close with. More like someone I’ve seen a picture of once. He was important to dream me, though.”

“Sounds like a point toward my theory.” Kara smirked.

“Winn not recognizing anyone in the dream doesn’t prove people are actually remembering past lives, Kara!” Alex said, a vein in her forehead throbbing as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“How many times have strangers ever been main characters in your dreams?” Kara asked with an arched eyebrow. “Especially in dreams you have no control over.”

“Wait, you think we _are_ actually experiencing past lives?” Winn said incredulously. “How would that even have been brought on?”

“Myriad.”

“Myriad?” Winn repeated.

“Think about it,” Kara said, words tumbling out so quickly Winn almost couldn’t understand her. “Everyone in National City was _deeply_ mind controlled and had to fight their way out of it. _Then_ the signals were changed to amplify brain cells. That can’t just leave people unchanged and unaffected. What if Myriad unlocked our ability to remember past lives?”

Winn couldn’t speak for a moment. Kara’s idea sounded impossible, but it made a strange kind of sense. No battle they’d ever fought before or since Myriad had been free of consequences, and the people he had just seen felt as real to him as Kara and Alex did….

“Wait, wait,” Winn said, coming to a realization. “ _Our_ ability? You weren’t under Myriad’s control.”

“No, but…,” Kara took a deep breath. “I think I’m remembering something, too. It’s not very clear, but-”

“But you weren’t actually under the influence. You were just in the blast zone,” Winn said, picking up where Kara was going.

“What have you been seeing?” Alex asked sharply. Winn could see the concern in her eyes.

“Nothing substantial. I’m in a high school somewhere - a modern one, not sometime in the past, which is the other difference I think I’m experiencing, but that’s not relevant - and I’m in some kind of singing group, and for some reason, Barry’s there,” Kara said. “But not Barry, because when I look at him, I immediately think, ‘Oh, not _this_ douchebag again,’ and I kind of want to smack him.”

Winn frowned. “Huh.”

Alex exhaled a long, slow breath. “I hate to say this, because now I owe you donuts for a month, but Kara...you may be right.”

“Can we run some tests?” Winn asked as Kara started happy dancing around the floor of the DEO. “I’ve got an old neuroimaging scan from when I got concussed during college, long before Myriad. If you took another one now and checked for differences….”

“We’d be able to see if anything has changed structurally,” Alex concluded. “Let’s get your brain zapped.”

“Not the most comforting choice of words,” Winn said, but he followed Alex dutifully. The lingering images in his mind from the dream were fuzzy at best, but they were sticking with him more intently than his usual dreams did. If a brain scan was what it took to get answers, then that seemed like a small price to pay.

________________________

Winn was waiting for Alex to finish analyzing the scans when a news broadcast caught his attention.

“I thought she looked familiar, but I’m a barista, I see lots of people every day,” a sweet-looking blonde girl was saying. “But our hands brushed as she took her coffee-”

“And suddenly I remembered everything,” the petite black girl next to her finished. “The speakeasy we met at.”

“Sharing our first kiss in the bathroom a few weeks later.”

“Everything,” the girl - the chyron now identifying her as Marissa and her partner as Ellie - repeated.

“And you had the dreams beforehand?” the reporter asked.

Both girls nodded. Winn felt the joints in his jaw crack as it dropped.

“And if that wasn’t confirmation enough,” Alex said from Winn’s side, making him jump. “The scan we just took is significantly different from your old one. Not including the concussion, of course.”

“God, where’d you come from?” Winn asked. He took a deep breath before continuing, “Also, how is it different?”

“So the hippocampus is associated with episodic memory,” Alex explained, pointing to the little seahorse-shaped structure on the old scan. “It can be smaller in older adults, and we assume that correlates with standard age-related memory loss. In your old scan, your hippocampus is the size you’d expect for a healthy adult.”

She shuffled the papers, revealing the new scan and tucking the old one behind it. “Here’s what it looks like now.”

“Holy crap,” Winn breathed.

“Yeah,” Alex said, nodding. “It’s huge. Probably nothing to worry about, but obviously that could change as we learn more.”

“Okay, I’d like to stick with ‘nothing to worry about.’”

“I’ll see if we can get scans from other city residents, especially if there are other people going through experiences like those of the girls on the news,” Alex said. “If we see enlarged hippocampi in them, too, then….”

“Then we’ll rob a lot of the local psychics of one of their main areas of business,” Winn finished, smiling.

“They’ll still have tarot cards and palm reading,” Alex said with a grin of her own. “I don’t think we’ll devastate the economy too badly.”

“Thank God. I can only handle one crisis at a time.”

“Don’t worry, the DEO will change that for you.”

“Again, not comforting!”

________________________

Winn leaned on the balcony railing outside the DEO, going over his past couple weeks worth of dreams. At least one of the same two people appeared every time, though more often than not, all three of them were together, and those latter dreams made Winn feel more content than he previously knew was possible.

“Are you okay?” Kara asked, walking out of the building to come lean next to Winn. “You’ve been kind of quiet recently.”

“Am I not always the strong, silent type?” Winn joked, making Kara laugh and nudge him gently with her shoulder. “I know, I know. I’m good, I promise. I just...can’t stop thinking about my dreams. Memories? Drem-ories?”

“Nope! Not calling them that,” Kara said decisively. “But we can name them another time. You wanna talk?”

“It’ll sound stupid.”

“If it’s bothering you, then it’s not stupid.”

Winn blew out a breath, his eyes fixed on the city skyline. “Ever since I started having these dreams, my life feels like it’s missing something. I keep catching myself forming an idea and turning to share it, but then I look and the people I’m trying to talk to aren’t actually there. Or we’ll be taking stock after fighting yet another alien and I’ll find myself waiting for two more people to confirm they’re okay, but then I remember they’re not actually real. Or at least not real in this lifetime. It’s like I was part of a triangle, but now I’m suddenly a random, unfixed point.”

“Winn. Everyone who has had these dreams has been dreaming about someone real,” Kara said. “You just haven’t found them yet. Tell me more about them. I see so many people in the city every day when I’m out being Supergirl. If I know what to look for, I’ll know who to send your way.”

“I don’t want to give you more to do-”

“I’m your friend!” Kara said emphatically, drawing Winn’s attention away from the city. She held his gaze as she continued, “You have done so much for me since I became Supergirl. Let me do something for you.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you, Kara Danvers?” Winn asked, shooting her a smile. “Okay, okay, fine. So there’s two people, like I mentioned before - a man and a woman. I don’t know their names, but I doubt that would help much anyways, since we’ve all got different identities now.”

“Everyone’s usurping my secret identity trick!” Kara lamented with a laugh.

“Hey, Supergirl’s supposed to be a role model, right? This is what you get,” Winn said, laughing along. “Um, okay, he’s definitely taller than I am, but only by an inch or two. Dark hair. Fair skinned. Great smile.”

“Very specific. Why can’t these dreams be in high definition?”

“Maybe we weren’t under the mind control long enough.”

“Speak for yourself. What does she look like, then?”

“Right about my height, maybe an inch shorter. Curly hair - sometimes it looks brown to me, but in the right light, it’s got some red. I think she threatened to deck me once.”

“So if I see her taking a swing at you, she’s just reliving a memory. Got it,” Kara teased. “Should I check the local boxing clubs?”

“What happened to ‘I’m your friend’?” Winn asked, faking offense.

“Do you want to find these people or not?” Kara replied, eyes sparkling. “Make up your mind!”

“Fine, fine, do your worst. The DEO has worker’s comp, right?”

“I promise I’ll protect you if your mystery girl tries to take a swing at you,” Kara said, wrapping her arms around Winn. “Wouldn’t want to make game night awkward.”

“They’re already invited to game night?” Winn said, squeezing Kara’s shoulders.

“Of course they are, though they might have to wait until after Clark and Lois’s visit is over. There’s just not enough space in the loft.”

Winn stepped out of their embrace. “Clark and Lois. Right. Your superhero cousin and his brilliant girlfriend. When do they arrive again?”

“They’ll be here tomorrow morning. Think you’ll be able to make it through the whole day without spilling coffee all over yourself or our expensive government-issued technology?”

“Please, I’ll be cooler than your freeze breath,” Winn replied. He tried to lean against the balcony railing nonchalantly, but misjudged the distance between his arm and the metal and ended up stumbling.

“Uh huh. I’ll bring you some spare shirts in the morning.”

“You’re a true friend.”

________________________

“T-minus five minutes,” Alex said, starting Winn. “Did you synchronize your watch?”

“Did I - yes,” Winn admitted, knowing he’d never win a fight against Alex. “There’s also an alert in my Google calendar and an alarm on my phone.”

“You’re such a fanboy,” Alex teased, dropping down into the seat next to his.

“I keep missing Superman and Lois Lane’s visits!” Winn said. “Or I’m here, but we’re all mind controlled, so I have no memory of it. I’m finally about to meet the Man of Steel and the best reporter in the country - and I _will_ deny saying that if you ever tell Ms. Grant - so yeah, I’m doing everything I can to make sure I know when they arrive.”

“Trust me, you won’t be able to miss them. Clark’s the only person Kara can tacklehug without breaking every bone in his body.”

“I’m so gonna have to get that on video.”

“I see them!” Kara exclaimed from the main entrance. Winn almost fell out of his chair.

“C’mon. Let’s go stand a little closer,” Alex said. “Wouldn’t want you to have a bad view.”

Winn tried to glare at her, but he was too excited. As they approached the entrance, he could see a black blur in the sky that quickly resolved itself into the shape of a man holding a woman in his arms. Before he could make out any more details, the light shifted, making Winn have to look away as his eyes watered and the pair landed.

“Kal! Lois!” he heard Kara cry. There was the sound of hugging, then three pairs of feet - two in red boots, one in brown Oxfords - came into focus as he finally blinked his eyes clear. “This is Winn, one of my best friends and our resident tech genius.”

“Nice to-” Winn looked up to meet Superman’s gaze as they reached out to shake hands and almost forgot to finish his sentence. “-Meet you.”

_He looks so...no, he can’t be, he’s Kryptonian-_

Winn’s already disjointed inner monologue went completely off the rails when their hands met. Images splintered into his mind at lightspeed - _Newsies Square. Finding refuge at the theater. Forming the union. The disastrous rally, and the joyful celebration later when the newsies finally won, and-_

“David.”

“Jackie?”

“Davey!”

Winn didn’t know which one of them pulled the other into a hug first, only that one of the great loves of his life was finally in front of him after over a century of actual time and a couple of weeks of yearning dreams. Then a smaller body flung their arms around the pair of them, and Winn thought his knees would give out from under him as another round of memories hit.

_The theater. The strike. Her father’s office, and the rooftop, and Newsies Square when he finally realized there were people who cared about him._

“Katherine!” He freed one arm from his embrace with Davey - Clark? - to pull their girlfriend in better.

“Jack, oh my God, Jack!”

“Wait, what? What is going on?” Kara asked.

“Kara, this is them. This is who I’ve been dreaming about,” Winn said, trying to turn to look her in the eye without removing himself from his significant others.

“But Clark is Kryptonian, how does he have a full past life? I only had flashes of an alternate life.”

“Clark was fully under Myriad’s control, remember?” Alex chimed in, walking over to her sister. “He was more human than alien.”

“And we did believe in reincarnation on Krypton,” Kara mused. “Nothing said you had to reincarnate on the same planet, I suppose.”

Winn barely took this information in. He couldn’t spare focus from the people in his arms. “So you’re a reporter in every life, huh, Plumber?”

“Some of us just have a gift, Cowboy,” Katherine - Winn gave up on trying to use her or Davey’s modern identity - said, pulling back a little to look him in the eye.

“Didn’t you work for CatCo before this, too? You didn’t exactly get far away from the newspaper business yourself,” Davey said.

“I was fixing the computers, not selling the papers in the street!”

“That’s probably for the best, since you couldn’t get away with the ‘terrified flight from burning inferno’ bit anymore.”

Winn finally broke away from Davey and Kath in order to get a good swat in at Davey’s chest. “Ow!”

“I’m the Man of Steel now, remember?” Davey teased before taking Winn’s sore hand in both of his own and rubbing it gently.

“The _Girl_ of Steel would like to get caught up now, please,” Kara said, stepping forward.

“Sorry, Kara,” Katherine apologized. “As you may have guessed, Clark and I started having the past life dreams, too, since we were in National City during Myriad. When you called to tell us what was happening, we realized that the reason our dreams felt fuzzy was because there was a third person we were missing. If we hadn’t found Jack - I mean, Winn, just now, we were going to spend at least part of our visit here just exploring the city in the hopes of finding our mystery man.”

“And in your past lives, you were…?” Alex prompted.

“Jack Kelly, organizer of the Newsboys’ Strike of 1899.”

“David Jacobs, his long-suffering partner.”

“Katherine Plumber, aspiring journalist who covered the strike.”

“Uh, not quite, Plumber,” Winn said. “You forgot your _real_ last name.”

“Your real last name?” Kara echoed.

“Pulitzer. As in Joseph Pulitzer,” Katherine said, chagrined.

“We don’t hold it against you,” Davey said, pressing a kiss to the side of her forehead.

“Although if he’s also somewhere here in the city, I reserve the right to egg his car,” Winn teased.

“Oh, I’m definitely melting his locks shut with my heat vision if that’s the case.”

“Or you could _not_ plan to commit a crime within earshot of a government official,” Alex broke in threateningly, though Winn could tell by her smile that she wasn’t actually planning on arresting them. Yet.

“I’ll stop them if it gets to that, Alex, don’t worry. Now come on, let’s give them a minute,” Kara said, looping her arm in Alex’s and walking away.

Winn took Davey and Katherine each by the hand and led them out to the balcony.

“So, uh...what now?” he asked.

Davey and Katherine exchanged a knowing look.

“Well, we planned on being here for at least a couple of weeks, but that could easily be a couple of months depending on how forthcoming my leads are,” Kath said.

“And there will probably be plenty of aliens for Superman to help fight,” Davey continued.

“And maybe if it all goes well, I can convince J’onn that Metropolis needs its own branch of the DEO,” Winn finished. “You two need a place to stay while you’re here?”

“Wherever you are is wherever we’ll be,” Katherine said. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on, after all.”

“I can’t wait.”

“And I can’t wait to find out how many pictures of Santa Fe you’ve got hanging up in your apartment,” Davey said, eyes sparkling. “Or should I take the cardigan as a sign that Winn never had dreams of being a cowboy?”

“First of all, the cardigan is super comfy. Second...I don’t need Santa Fe. Not if you two are around,” Winn said, squeezing their hands.

They all collapsed inward for another embrace, and Winn felt Davey plant a kiss first on his head, then on Katherine’s. He thought of all the future that was just out there waiting for them and smiled.

Whatever came next was sure to be better than any dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that was a Glee reference in Kara's dream. I'm absolutely not sorry.


End file.
